A quilt for my father-in-law

Behold! Here is a quilter in her natural environment -- a quilt shop. See me, enraptured by the bolts and fat quarters, inspired by the shop samples, seduced by the promise of another exciting workshop!

To tell the truth, I'm actually on the job, gathering info for the store's quarterly newsletter. It's kind of fun to write it, because I get a sneak peek at all the latest products and upcoming classes. But I have promised myself, I am not buying more fabric, kits or patterns until I have finished up the many projects I have already half-completed, and/or used up my bulging stash.

So when I decided to make my father-in-law a quilt for his upcoming 70th birthday, I turned to my stash. There, I found a gorgeous jellyroll of autumn batiks, purchased quite some time ago simply because I loved the warm colours. Time to turn them into something charming and masculine.

I played around with ideas for a while, skimming the Internet for inspiration, and came across a photo of a pattern much like this, which was described as "keys". I think it looks like puzzle pieces. Another quilter at the retreat said the blocks look like capital F's. Whatever you want to call it, the blocks were easily constructed using jelly roll strips, although I had to add in other fabrics from my stash in order to make enough blocks. One jelly roll is not enough to make a quilt. You really need two, or preferably three jelly rolls. In which case, you might as well just buy yardage. But anyway.

I pieced the individual blocks (ie, each pair of interlocking pieces) at home, then brought the blocks to the retreat, where I laid them out on my friend's design wall, worked hard to "randomize" them, then sewed them together. I had to buy some fabric to add borders -- I didn't have enough of anything that went with the quilt -- so in the next few days, I need to finish the borders off... by the time this post is published, it should be his birthday and he should have opened it! I will try to remember to add a pic of the completed quilt top.

Unfortunately, after he receives it, I'll have to take it back for a while -- I couldn't get a date to have it machine quilted before the end of May. But I hope that in about a month and a half from now, he'll be napping happily under it!

And I can feel good that my long-hoarded autumn batik jellyroll has been put to a good use. One more thing that has graduated from stash limbo to the paradise of completion. One step closer to being able to buy new fabrics again!

Sweet Retreat: Part III

 Here's another quilt that sat for ages in my cupboard -- the pattern is called "Grandpa's Best" (I think), and I made the centre part of it at a workshop that was supposed to teach speedy cutting and piecing. Unfortunately, it didn't teach speedy finishing, and it took me years to finally add the two borders to finish it off.

To be fair, for a long time I had the idea that I would do some sort of fancy applique on the gold border -- I was going to cut it quite a lot thicker, and maybe add vines, grapes, leaves, pears, etc. But finally I decided I just wanted it FINISHED, so I decided to attach the borders and get it quilted. Perhaps some nice quilting in the border will finish it off -- I'll see if the machine quilter has any ideas.

I've always thought this quilt would make a great Christmassy wall-hanging, so if I hurry up and get it quilted this summer, it can deck my halls come December!

Sweet Retreat: Part II

Here's another incomplete I was able to finish at the retreat: a nine-patch made from a Moda charm pack.

I totally understand why people buy charm packs -- or jelly rolls, or layer cakes: you get a handful of pretty, coordinating fabrics that are very visually appealing! The reality, however, is that once you get your precuts home, you realize how limited you are in what you can make with them. Unless you're happy churning out a table runner or wall hanging, a charm pack simply isn't enough fabric to be useful.

I managed to eek a quilt out of my single charm pack first by cutting each charm square in four, then mixing them with white and off-white prints to make nine-patches. But that still wasn't usefully quilt-sized. So I went back to the quilt store where I bought the charm pack to begin with, and they still had some of the fabrics that appeared in the charm pack on the bolt -- so I picked the blue fabric with large pink and yellow roses, because it contains all of the colours that appear in the other fabrics. I was going to attach the fabric directly as a wide border, but my fellow quilter Karen -- who is quite accomplished and artistic -- suggested that I frame the nine-patch centre with a thin green strip first. I did, and I think it does a nice job of setting the squares off.

Not sure yet what the destiny of this quilt is, but it looks to me like a quilt to snuggle with on the porch, on a cool summer evening.